


even as a shadow (even as a dream)

by sage-major (Cinza_Snicholls)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Hogwarts, M/M, Multi, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinza_Snicholls/pseuds/sage-major
Summary: Blue Sargent was beginning to think that she must be a Squib.Runes fell jumbled and meaningless on her bedroom floor; tea leaves remained smudgy and indistinct. True dreams eluded her, and lines on palms spelled out no messages she could decipher. If Blue had the invisible third eye all her relatives were supposed to possess, it remained stubbornly closed.





	even as a shadow (even as a dream)

**I**

Blue Sargent was beginning to think that she must be a Squib. 

Runes fell jumbled and meaningless on her bedroom floor; tea leaves remained smudgy and indistinct. True dreams eluded her, and palm lines spelled out no messages she could decipher. If Blue had the invisible third eye all her relatives were supposed to possess, it remained stubbornly closed.

 

Her family disagreed with her declaration of this troubling normality, despite their unusual resilience to stigma. 

"Your genetics are too strong for that," her mother said.

Blue raised an eyebrow. "Narcissist," she suggested.

"Your father's too," Maura said. "I meant both of us."

Blue's interest was piqued. Maura rarely mentioned Blue's father, and she slipped away from questions about him with all the agility of a Chaser evading a Bludger. 

"So he was a wizard,then," Blue said. She wasn't sure how to feel about the idea of suddenly being pure-blood-for-sure, having imagined for years that her father must have been a romantic but tragically footloose Muggle man; a rootless wanderer who may not even have stayed long enough to learn that his lover was a witch. On the other hand, if there was ever a shining example of "blood traitors", it would be her aunts, so perhaps she could accept this news with equanimity after all. 

"More than _that_ ," Calla said meaningfully, and Blue felt her cleverly-averted identity crisis looming again. She was vaguely annoyed, as she felt she had done a very sensible job of fielding it the first time around.

" _More_ than a wizard?"  

Maura shot Calla a look and then told Blue, "Rest assured, there's more than enough magic on his side. You just have to be patient. You know our abilities tend to run towards the specific."

"Yeah, specifically _psychic_ ," Blue retorted. "I've never shown a shred of talent for divination, and you know it."

"Well," Maura said, "...yes."

 

Each of the women Blue had grown up with had a very specific magical affinity -  including the two who Blue wasn't _technically_ related to but considered to be de facto parents by virtue of their relationship to her mother. Calla's gift was psychometry. She could hold an object and sense its origin, feel its owner's thoughts, and see places the thing had been. Persephone's specialty was scrying, although Maura had often warned Blue that scrying was _highly_ dangerous. You could lose track of your soul and your body, apparently, or the relative positions of the two. It seemed to Blue that Persephone was almost always mentally somewhere not quite of this world, though. She wasn't sure how much further there was to go. 

 

The point was, in a long line of Sargent women, there had never been an aunt or a cousin or a daughter who didn't have a highly specific, highly _exclusive_ talent for divination. This was not usual, of course, but Blue had long ago accepted it as one of the realities of her world. She was a witch, but she was destined to grow up with a strong talent for fortune-telling, and not a spark of magical ability in any other area. Whenever Maura did a tarot reading for her daughter, and Blue inevitably picked out the Page of Cups, Maura would talk about all the potential held in that raised chalice, ready to overflow. 

But when, Blue had to wonder, did it stop being potential and start being _something more_? 

 

 

**II**

Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness. He was bred for it; nobility and purpose coded in both sides of his pedigree. His mother's father had been the Chief of Staff in the Magical Congress of the United States of America - right hand man to the President. His father's father had been a famed  British Dragonologist, credited with the discovery and taming of several species. His mother's mother had been a Potioneer of the calibre that put many others out of business, and his father's mother had been an Auror Commissioner who was both widely feared and widely admired. The Ganseys were courtiers and kings, and when there was no castle to invite them, they built one. 

Gansey's potential for greatness had been assumed since the cradle, but confirmed with extraordinary force at age ten when he had met the Demon and not only survived, but seemingly banished the wizarding world's greatest enemy.

 

Once upon a time, the youngest Gansey had been stung to death by hornets - a living, crawling, swarming manifestation of the dark Demon. In all things, he had been given every advantage, and mortality was no different. He'd died, but failed to stay dead.

 

It was the first and only failure he had been permitted in his short lifetime. Young Gansey had felt that his life up until the moment of the attack had been a whirlwind of stiff, formal event after stiff, formal event – but it was nothing compared to what came after. The Boy Who Lived was required viewing for the guests at every party, every Quidditch match, every mansion-hosted gathering of influential witches and wizards.

 

Fourteen-year-old Gansey, well-heeled and charming in tailored robes, was hearing the unsolicited prediction once again. 

"You'll go on to do great things, Mr Gansey, I'm sure," intoned the Minister of Something-or-other, shaking his hand with what Gansey privately considered to be excessive force. 

"I'll do my best, sir," Gansey replied, bringing out his most polished smile. 

The man chuckled, pointing one finger at Gansey as though he had made some terrifically funny joke. 

"Now," he said, leaning in, "I'm sure you must get this all the time, but I have to ask..."

Gansey's heart sank. He smiled on, politely. 

"...how did you do it?" 

Gansey pretended ignorance, knowing it would do no good. "Sir?"

"Survive it. Survive...." the old wizard lowered his voice, "...the Demon?"

Gansey made a face of feigned surprise. "I can't tell you all my secrets, now can I?" He pointed a jocular finger gun at the old man. "You might steal all the spotlight!" 

The Minister blinked and then laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "Good lad," he said. "Trust no one, eh?" He winked and snagged a glass of firewhiskey from a passing waiter. Gansey took the opportunity to duck away, sinking backwards into a quiet alcove with relief. 

 

Gansey wished that he could forget about the Demon and its hornets; for a day, for an hour. For a moment. The Demon came back to him in his dreams, in instants of distraction, in every shape he saw and every breeze that brushed by his ear. The well-meaning interrogation came as no surprise - the same curiosity burned in the eyes of most every wizard he met, and the question was so familiar that he could have asked it for them: _How did you do it?_  

_Why you, when so many others had fallen before it?_

 

Gansey had given no one an answer to these questions; even his parents, even his sister who came perhaps the closest of anyone in the world to understanding the truest version of him. The silence felt dishonest to Gansey, but he could not possibly give them the truth. 

The truth was this: He didn't know. 

There was no hidden power in him, no secret he was keeping under wraps. There was no reason he could find that he was still alive.

 

Gansey had always known he was destined for greatness, but now that he had achieved it, he had no idea how to explain the grand trick he had pulled. There was no rabbit beneath the hat; this was not a performance he could repeat. There was only a gnawing hole of doubt and guilt in his stomach that ate away more of him every year. He was a hollow vessel for titles and hopes: the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One. The Great Gansey. It sounded like the title of a Muggle novel he had once read. He couldn't remember the plot, only that there was a rich young man who died...perhaps because of a dream. In pursuit of a dream? He couldn't remember. It had seemed to be a _moral_ death, which had made an impression on him, although he couldn't recall any of the surrounding details. 

 

Gansey would just have to go out and make something of himself. He felt a desperate but nebulous need to be useful to the world, to make sure his life meant something beyond champagne parties and tailored robes - to stop being congratulated for something he felt had been an accident, or the action of some greater power outside himself. For whatever reason, he had been saved from his fate, and now he felt that he owed it to the world to find a way to repay the debt.


End file.
